Caring for Veterans Heritage, Resources and Opportunities

Across Victoria thousands of families and communities hold items of significance relating to the history of Australia's involvement in war. Such material includes memorabilia, letters, diaries, medals, uniforms and other items of historical significance.

Caring for private collections is vital to preserving the state's heritage and history.

Below are some resources for families and communities to assist them to look after their heritage.

Caring for your Wartime Memorabilia is an online publication produced by the Commonwealth Department of Veterans Affairs. It provides tips on how to look after everything from medals, to uniforms, to documents.

Victorian Collections is a free collections management and online publishing system developed and maintained by Museums Victoria and Museums Australia (Victoria). This system allows you to catalogue your collections and share the resulting records with the public

Preserving war heritage fact sheets. Download fact sheets on preserving war heritage and memorabilia with tips on how to preserve war heritage including honour rolls, memorabilia, war memorials and other topics.

Resources for RSLs, community museums & historical societies

Community Collections Training is provided by Museums Australia (Victoria) to local RSLs, community museums and historical societies who are the custodians of heritage collections. They offer a number of practical workshops on a regional basis.

Heritage Resources and Opportunities

Read on for more details of events, activities and opportunities for volunteers involved in the preservation of Victoria's war-related heritage.

Free Practical Collections Training - Online!

Museums Australia (Victoria) has developed a series of free practical online training sessions reflecting best practice technique on caring for and providing access to museum collections. The first two videos in this series are now available. Check them out:

Do you need a cataloguing system for your RSL or heritage organisation?

Victorian Collections is a new free, easy to use, online cataloguing system that is available to collecting organisations throughout Victoria, including RSLs and military heritage groups. Over the coming months workshops for volunteers to learn this cataloguing system will be held across Victoria.

Looking for volunteers to assist with your collection?

Deakin University has a number of Cultural Heritage & Museum Studies students who are available to volunteer for projects that will help them build experience working with heritage collections. They know that volunteering is the way to put textbook theory into practice.

If your heritage organisation has a project in need of support, and you can put some time into working with a student, let Deakin help by circulating the information to an enrolment of nearly 200 people.

Victorian War Heritage Inventory

The Victorian War Heritage Inventory was developed in partnership with Heritage Victoria. It is a searchable online database containing information and images of places relating to Victoria's war history including war memorials, avenues of honour, places of commemoration and former defence sites. Users can search for places according to keyword, postcode, region, type of heritage, or conflict commemorated.

Grants for Heritage

War-related heritage in Victoria: a report

War-related heritage in Victoria was commissioned by DCPD and gives an overview of the extent and nature of war-related heritage in the state such as memorials, commemorative buildings, honour rolls and memorabilia. The report estimates the number of war memorials and other sites, and explores the preservation of moveable heritage through a series of case studies involving collections in RSLs, local historical societies and community museums.

Talks & lectures

The Shrine of Remembrance offers regular lectures to the public. Hear more from historians, authors and film makers on a variety of subjects related to Australia's experiences of war. Download audio recordings of lectures given at the National Archives of Australia on a variety of subjects related to Australian history.

Exhibitions

The Shrine of Remembrance has a number of exhibitions throughout the year which shed light on aspects of Australia's war history and heritage. Some of the Shrine's exhibitions are also currently touring Victoria, including the award-winning Indigenous Australians at war from the Boer War to the present.

Walks and tours

The National Trust (Victoria) runs a number of events and activities for history buffs including cemetery walks, exhibitions and walking tours.

Take a behind the scenes tour of the Public Record Office Victoria and learn how to conduct your research. Tours depart 1pm sharp every Friday (excluding public holidays) unless otherwise specified. Groups by appointment.

Royal Historical Society Newsletter

The Royal Historical Society Newsletter contains news about the community history sector and a great 'What's on' section. Did you know that RSLs and military history groups are eligible to become members of the Royal Historical Society?

Veterans' digital stories

In Our Words

In Our Words is a Digital Storytelling Project which recorded the wartime experiences of Victorian veterans. The project was being run by the Victorian Government in partnership with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and the Shrine of Remembrance.

Since 2009, nearly 200 veterans from Melbourne, Bendigo, Swan Hill, Sale, St Arnaud, Morwell, Wodonga and Warrnambool participated in the project, with the involvement of local schools. Students worked side by side with the veterans and ACMI staff to create 'mini movies' that record and share a small part of each veterans' rich experience and reflections.

In Our Words and schools

A selection of our veterans' stories is also part of an exciting new education collection being developed by project partner, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. The collection is available to schools online and via the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's education portal called FUSE (Find, Use, Share quality Education resources).

Other digital story projects

Culture Victoria

Victorian Unit Histories

Over 110,000 Victorians enlisted to serve in World War I. They served across all Australian military units: air force, artillery, cavalry, infantry, naval, transport and services (medical, military police and specialist corps).

Between 1914 and 1918 around 30 units were raised in Victoria to serve overseas. DPCD in partnership with the State Library of Victoria has digitised the histories of these Victorian units. Visit the World War I unit histories.